


The Solar Year

by WolfOfAnsbach



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, M/M, Romance, fair warning, this will rot your teeth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:39:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28126245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfOfAnsbach/pseuds/WolfOfAnsbach
Summary: The months of the year as experienced by the very much in love Elizabeth Cooper and Veronica Lodge
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper/Veronica Lodge
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	The Solar Year

**January**

11:55.

The clock ticked down.

Drunkenly, Archie began to count off.

“Forty-five, forty-four.”

Jughead walked by, slapping him on the back. “You’re five minutes early, bro.”

Betty sat on the Blossom’s red plush Ottoman, knees pressed together, eyes clapped onto the old Grandfather clock. She shut out the sounds of teenage carousing. Reggie smashed his shins into a table with a howl. Cheryl laughed heartily. Betty ignored them. Veronica watched her stare straight ahead, great blue eyes dutifully following the minute hand of the clock as it slid towards 11:56.

Veronica licked her lips. She had a cup of cheap beer in her hand, but she had not drunk too much, and was only a little buzzed. She stumbled over to her friend and flopped down on the futon next to her.

“Hi,” Betty said, her voice a little tight.

“Hi, yourself,” Veronica said, knocking her thigh against Betty’s. Betty shifted in her seat and smoothed out her pleated skirt. “What are you doing squirrelled away in the corner, here? Don’t let Cheryl see your obstinate refusal to have fun or she’ll take it as a personal affront.”

Across the room, Cheryl was screeching at Reggie to get the fuck out of her pantry while Jason wrested a bag of Doritos from his hands.

Betty pursed her lips and smiled. “Who says I’m not having fun? I just like watching the clock hit twelve. It’s like…a thing. You know.”

Veronica, head swimming, reached out and squeezed her friend’s hands. She saw Betty’s fair cheeks flush for the briefest second.

“Okay.”

“Well you don’t have to do it with me. I mean I don’t wanna make you sit here and—”

“It’s fine. We’ll count it off together. Cool?”

Betty smiled. Her teeth showed broadly, and she closed her mouth like she was embarrassed to smile like too widely. “Cool,” she said.

“When the clock strikes 11:58, we start. Yeah?”

“Yep.”

Veronica squeezed her hand again.

The hand slid to 11:58.

They began, in unison.

“120, 119, 118…”

Halfway to midnight and the new year, Veronica leaned over and rested her head on Betty’s shoulder, and yawned. She lost her count, but Betty kept it going. She might have been the only one in the house to mark the occasion.

“Happy new year!” she half-whispered into Veronica’s ear when the Grandfather clock sounded. Veronica turned and kissed her on the cheek.

**February**

“Look—Valentine’s Day wasn’t even intended to celebrate romantic love. It was the feast day of St. Valentine, and in the 1700s—”

Veronica pressed her fingers into her temples. “Oh my God, Jughead, in the nicest possible way, please shut the fuck up.”

Archie shrugged and stuffed a Hershey’s kiss into his mouth. “I like Valentine’s Day.”

“I know you do,” Betty said. And then she jerked the box of chocolates away from him and added, a little more harshly. “And stop eating those. I told you they weren’t for you.” She slammed the lid back on.

“Fine,” Archie huffed. “I gotta get to class. I’ll see you guys.” He stood. 

“I’ll come with,” Jughead said. “I’ve gotta drop by the Blue & Gold for something, anyways.” Jughead reached up, Archie took his hand, and helped him to his feet.

That left the girls alone at the table. Betty formed a protective cage around her box of chocolates with her arms, as if she was afraid Archie might return for more. Veronica speared another few leaves of greens and forked them into her mouth. When she finished chewing, she turned to her friend and said, with a hint of humor. “So—who are the chocolates for?”

“Um—” Betty said, hesitant but not exactly nervous.

“Of course, if Jughead is right and love is dead and this holiday is a filthy lie, then I suppose it shouldn’t really matter who enjoys them, and I deserve them as much as anyone else.” She walked her fingers across the table towards the chocolates. Betty didn’t slap her hand away. Not even when she gingerly picked out a bite of chocolate-coated cherry candy and popped it between her lips.

“I—” Betty’s cheeks burned again. Veronica kind of liked that, except that she always felt bad for whatever it was that had her friend flustered. But it was cute and the tinge of red in her skin offset the marine-blue in her eyes. “Well, actually I got them for you. Which is—why I’m not mad that you’re taking any. I guess.”

The next piece of candy stopped halfway to Veronica’s mouth. Now it was her turn to blush a little, and she silently thanked God her skin was a few shades darker. When she regathered her composure, she pressed a hand to her chest with a dramatic flourish and said, “Elizabeth Cooper, are you asking me to be your Valentine?”

“Well,” Betty answered, averting her eyes. “The chocolates were on sale for Valentine’s Day, and I remembered that time you got me those muffins from—”

“So,” Veronica said, with a drawn out ‘o.’ “Is that a yes?”

“I guess,” Betty said.

“Yes, or no?” Veronica prodded.

Finally, Betty managed to make eye contact. Her lips twisted into a weird half-frown half-expressionless line. But then that broke and gave way to a very small, very real smile. And she said, “yes. Sure.”

Veronica covered Betty’s hands with her own. “Well, Valentine. The answer is yes.” Before Betty could say anything else, she added, “and in five minutes we’re going to be late to English, so why don’t you come be my Valentine in third period, hmm?”

Betty beamed. “Love to.”

**March**

A study session for the upcoming APUSH final was Veronica’s idea. Doing it in the clearing next to Sweetwater River was Betty’s ideas, and a quintessentially Betty one.

“Proposed act of congress that would have banned slavery in the Mexican cession?” Betty quizzed, leafing through flashcards as fast as her fingers would go.

“Wilmot Proviso,” Veronica answered, without missing a beat.

“Great!” Betty beamed. “See? You’re a regular Shelby Foote already.”

“Who?”

“It—nobody. I watch too many documentaries with Jughead, sorry.”

“It’s cool.” Veronica bumped her shoulder against Betty’s the way she liked to do and it made her stomach flip a little the way it always did.

They took a half hour’s break from studying to get through the lunch they’d packed—a few sandwiches, a bottle of juice, and some home-baked brownies. Betty ate fast. Faster than she usually did.

“You’ve got some, uh—” Veronica reached out and brushed a few crumbs from Betty’s chin.

“Th—” Betty tried to thank her, but instead coughed on another chunk of brownie. Her face reddened. She finally managed to choke it down, thumping her chest. “Sorry.”

“You okay?” Veronica asked.

“Yeah I’m just—I wanted to ask you something.”

Veronica’s chest tingled a little. She swallowed and licked her lips.

“What?”

“Um—okay I know this sounds dumb. Remember how you were my Valentine last month?”

Veronica felt a little taken aback. She definitely remembered. The memory of Betty asking her to be her Valentine was already a special and cherished one, and it drew out a smile all on its own.

“How might I ever forget?”

“Right, well...” Betty tugged at a few blades of grass. She plucked them from the dirt and laid them out end to end on her thigh. Her eyes flicked down to the ground. “I was going to ask…”

Veronica’s stomach turned in a way she was not sure if she liked or not. She scooted closer to Betty. She didn’t want to do anything that would upset the fragile balance that seemed to have been struck.

“Ask..” Veronica prodded. Her throat went dry.

“If you would be my Valentine again? Except…not only…on Valentine’s Day?” As soon as it came out of her mouth the color drained from Betty’s face. “Wow. That sounded a lot smoother in my head.”

Veronica almost fainted. For a minute she thought she was hallucinating, because there was no way that—but she wasn’t hallucinating. And before she could second guess herself she darted forward and gave Betty a quick peck on the lips. Betty didn’t blush this time. She just smiled with a deep relief and evident joy she’d gotten her point across.

“Yes!” Veronica blurted out. “Absolutely. Valentines today, tomorrow, on Halloween, on Thanksgiving, on Christmas—”

“Okay, okay,” Betty giggled, motioning for her to calm down. Then she went in for the next kiss. “Starting now?”

Veronica took her hands in hers.

“Absolutely.”

**April**

“Believe it or not, I’ve never attended an actual Easter Egg hunt before.”

Betty pursed her lips and shook her head in disapproval. Veronica shrugged apologetically. Her girlfriend sighed.

“God, Veronica. No offense, but New York sounds awful.”

“It had its downsides.”

Betty knocked their shoulders together. The two sat together at the edge of Riverdale green, beneath the shade of a poplar tree, as hordes of unruly children between the ages of five and ten rushed over the grass in search of not-especially-well-hidden plastic eggs (and a few real ones, from those with some real respect for the holiday).

“Well,” Betty teased. “Technically there’s no age cut off. So if you wanna join in…”

Veronica rolled her eyes and smiled.

A little boy hurtled past, holding aloft a brightly colored green egg and screeching, “I found one, I found one!”

Veronica nuzzled against Betty’s shoulder and closed her eyes, letting a dying winter breeze rustle through her hair.

“You’re so clingy,” Betty laughed.

“Am not,” Veronica insisted, sliding her arm around Betty’s waist. “You’re just warm.”

“Hmmph.” Veronica opened her eyes again when Betty one more spoke, this time with a bit of concern in her voice; “hey, is that Jellybean?”

Sure enough, a few dozen yards away, against a rusting fence-post, sat Jughead’s six year old sister, curled up in a half-ball, knees to her chest.

“I…think so?” Veronica said, extricating herself from her girlfriend’s embrace. “Is she okay?”

Betty didn’t hear the last question, because she was already halfway across the green to the little girl. When Veronica caught up to them, Betty was kneeling beside her, a hand on her little shoulder. Jellybean’s face was red, and her cheeks soaked with fresh tears. Her blue eyes—just like her brother’s—were big and soft and sad, and a few strands of black hair matted to her temples with the tears.

“Hey, honey, what’s wrong?” Betty cooed. “Are you okay?”

“Mmm,” Jellybean mumbled, shrugging in that way little kids do.

“Come on, what happened?”

Veronica took an educated guess, as she spotted the empty wicker basket beside Jellybean. Then her suspicions were confirmed when the girl said, “I can’t find any eggs. And everybody else is gonna find them all and there won’t be any for me.”

“Aww,” Betty leaned in and pressed a kiss to her messy raven hair. “Sweetie, don’t cry. You want me to help you find some?”

Jellybean wiped at her runny nose with the back of her hand. Then she managed a brittle smile and nodded. Betty smiled back and took that very same little hand, unbothered by the streak of boogers.

Veronica smiled, too. Bigger than either of them. It was just about the cutest thing she’d seen in a long time, and her heart was simply melting.

With Jellybean’s hand in hers, Betty led the two of them around the park, into the general vicinities of the eggs whose hiding places she knew, letting the six-year-old actually pull aside the leaves or turn over the rocks herself.

“Where’s Jughead?” Veronica asked, as Jellybean rushed off to climb a squat little birch tree with an egg secreted away in its low branches.

“He and Archie went off a while ago,” Betty said.

“Are they like…dating yet?” Veronica asked, unable to help the impish, mischievous smile.

“I mean, not officially but—”

“Yeah, I know how it goes,” Veronica said.

“I found one!” Jellybean squealed.

Betty clapped for her and called, “yay!”

By the end of the day, as the middling April sun went down over the mountains in the distance and the breeze became a stiff wind, Jellybean had collected a satisfactory twelve eggs, which she now eagerly cracked open to get at the candy and baubles inside.

“You can have half,” Jellybean said to Betty, very earnestly. “Since you helped me find them.”

“Of course not,” Betty tousled her hair. “You found them all by yourself.”

Veronica’s heart melted again.

“You’re gonna be such a wonderful mom,” she teased in a low whisper. 

Betty’s face flushed. “Who says I’m gonna be a mom?”

Veronica put her hands up. “Okay. Hypothetically, if you wanted to be a mother, you would be a great one.”

Betty’s face softened, and she leaned down a little and kissed her girlfriend on the lips and said, “I always figured you would be the cool mom.”

Veronica cupped her face and ran her thumb over the edge of Betty’s full, pink lips. “We’ve got lots of time to get that all sorted out.”

Just as night fell, Archie and Jughead reappeared. They looked very well and all, except for the light hickey just barely hidden by Jughead’s natty Sherpa collar that Veronica decided—after much internal deliberation—not to call to attention.

Jellybean rushed to her brother, waving the basket around like a madwoman.

“Jughead, Jughead! look at all the eggs I found!”

Jughead easily swept her up in his arms as she approached. Archie laughed and said, “hey! You’re getting heavy, huh? Can I have an egg?”

In horror, Jellybean yanked her basket away from him.

“See,” Veronica laughed. “They, on the other hand, are going to be terrible parents.”

**May**

Veronica was curled up in her girlfriend’s lap, their lips pressed together, and a hand tangled in Betty’s glorious golden hair. That was all pretty cool, and then Jughead’s ubiquitous voice cut into the bliss with a sharp, “you guys really just…do that anywhere, huh?”

She broke the kiss, heard Betty sigh, and turned to glare at Jughead. He, himself, was reclining against Archie’s chest (the latter had passed out in the middle of the school day) and stuffing Cheetos from the lounge vending machine into his mouth. Veronica thought the whole thing was in itself a pretty unappealing site and that he therefore had little room to pass judgment on her.

But before she could say anything, they were joined by a fifth party.

Jason Blossom shuffled up to them, looking surly and kind of vaguely creepy, as he usually did.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey yourself,” Jughead answered.

“So,” Jason went on, speaking as if each word was a chore. “Cheryl’s having her birthday party this Saturday. An—”

“Just Cheryl?” Betty interrupted, peeling herself away from Veronica for a moment. “Isn’t it both your birthdays?”

“Yes,” he said, flatly. “Anyways, she’s having her party this Saturday at Thornhill and…she’d like for you guys to come.” He fixed his gaze on Betty and Veronica. “Especially you two.”

“So…why doesn’t she ask us?” Veronica inquired.

“Because…are you serious? You seriously think she’s ever going to admit she needs or wants anyone’s company? Look, of course she’s not going to ask you. But she’d really like you to come. Trust me.”

“Well,” Veronica made a show of examining her fingernails. “Sorry, but I’m gonna need to hear it from her—”

“We’ll be there,” Betty said, definitively.

Jason sighed, like they’d taken a big weight off of his shoulders. “Thanks.”

He turned and went.

“Seriously?” Veronica huffed.

“Come one,” Betty said, snuggling back up to her and burying her face in the crook of Veronica’s neck. “Everyone deserves a half-decent birthday. Even Cheryl.”

When they actually got to Thornhill Saturday evening, Cheryl lit up like the sun. Just as quickly, she suppressed her smile and adopted an exaggerated apathy. “Oh,” she sighed. “You came.”

“Yeah,” Veronica clapped a hand on Cheryl’s shoulder, smiling when she tensed up. “Happy birthday.”

Then Betty came along and stuck a neatly wrapped red package into the birthday girl’s hands, and offered a much more sincere, “happy birthday.”

Cheryl’s smile came back, and this time she didn’t try to hide it.

**June**

“You can swim, can’t you?” It’s a question Betty asked with a hint of incredulity. Everyone could swim, can’t they?

“I mean…technically?” was Veronica’s mealy-mouthed answer. She was already in her purple bikini, lips pursed, wine-dark eyes scanning the choppy surface of Sweetwater River.

Archie, Jughead, and Kevin were already disporting in the water.

Betty gave her girlfriend a ‘tell me the truth’ look. “Be honest.”

“Yeah, I can swim,” Veronica said. “Just, not great.”

Betty smiled. She reached out and took Veronica’s hands.

“Come on. It’s okay. We don’t have to go in, deep. But it’s summer in Riverdale. And that means swimming in Sweetwater River. No exceptions.”

Veronica continued to gnaw on her lip, but supinely allowed herself to be led to the water’s edge. The moment the green current touched her toes, she squealed and drew back. Betty laughed.

“B, come on—can’t we just hang out on shore an—”

“No.”

Veronica sighed and resigned herself. She winced as the water rose to her thighs, then her hips. Betty was unphased.

“There’s a little drop off, here,” Betty said. “So—”

Too late. Veronica stumbled into five feet of water, letting out a brief shriek. As the water lapped at her chin, she was far too panicked to realize she was, in fact, doing a competent job of staying afloat, and in little danger of drowning anytime soon. She kicked feverishly, arms slapping at the surface in that messy, untutored stroke. But she was swimming.

Then an arm slid around her waist, and Betty was next to her, keeping them both afloat with surprising strength. Veronica could feel her heart wildly hammering away in her chest, and Betty could feel it too, because she said, “geez, Ronnie, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Veronica gratefully put her arms around her girlfriend’s neck. She felt another jolt of fear as the bottom dropped out from under them, but Betty held her a little tighter and it was replaced with a calm warmth, despite the chill of the water.

“See?” Betty beamed. “Wanna go out a little further?”

Veronica glared at her, but could hardly stay mad at those big, blue-green eyes. “Okay. But you owe me.”

Betty smiled mischievously.

“Owe you what?”

“How about a kiss?”

She leaned in and kissed Veronica softly, and Veronica could taste the tart, stony river water on both their lips, and found she didn’t really mind.

“Okay,” Betty said. “I paid in advance. Let’s go?”

She kicked off and they drifted towards the center of the river. The boys were already a few dozen yards downstream.

“You’re a little heavy,” Betty soon admitted, now that Veronica had not only her arms around her neck, but also her legs around her waist. “And you don’t even need me. You were doing fine a minute again.”

“Elizabeth Cooper, if you let me go, I will kill you.”

“I’m not gonna let you go!”

Clinging to her girlfriend for dear life, Veronica floated off down Sweetwater River. Veronica rested her head against Betty’s shoulder, allowing herself to enjoy the sun on her face, the hearty coolness of the water, and Betty’s gentle breathing against her ear.

After a few minutes, they crawled out of the water onto a large, flat stone protruding from the center of the river. Jughead was already there, lying back, arms behind his head, while Archie and Kevin hung off of the edge of the rock and splashed water at him.

“Stop it!” he complained.

The girls ignored them. Betty stretched herself out along the stone. Veronica lay down sideways, planting her head in her girlfriend’s lap.

“Excuse me?” Betty laughed.

“You’re soft,” Veronica mumbled, her cheek pressed against Betty’s thighs. Betty leaned down and affectionately tugged at a strand of Veronica’s raven hair.

“Awww,” Jughead mocked, drawing his knees up to his bare chest. “Adorable.”

Betty leaned over and shoved him back into the water.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll do the second half of the year later. Or not.


End file.
